Hailing the 'Head

Radiohead's Atlanta show offered something for all its fans

Radiohead occupies a precarious position in the major-label rock star stratosphere, a no man's land between indie-rock inscrutability and stadium-rock showmanship.

On the one hand, Radio-head's indirect sonic slipperiness and fast-and-loose faithlessness with trad-rock structure seem like perfect cult fodder, while its left-of-center politics and well-known distaste for corporate machinations sure aren't meant to endear the band to Clear Channel and its cronies.

That said, Radiohead's preternatural sense of melodic and anthemic timelessness has ensnared such a multitude of fans, fairweather and diehard alike, that the club circuit just isn't a feasible option.

And thank goodness for that, because a hole in the wall packed in the low hundreds just couldn't do justice to the cavernous spaces that Radiohead creates in concert, nor could it ever hope to capture the isolation of lead singer Thom Yorke's claustrophobic inner world quite like a larger-than-life, video screen-enhanced stadium-rock circus show.

Where Radiohead once seemed unsure of how to translate its perverse proclivities and out-of-step worldview to a crowd of 20,000 concertgoers, no such hesitation or discomfort was evident when those unlikeliest arena-rockers paid a visit to the Hi Fi Buys Amphitheater in Atlanta on a rain-soaked October night near the end of their late-summer U.S. tour.

Now just because Radiohead's music airs out well in the cookie-cutter sheds of America doesn't mean the band fits the bill for a business-as-usual hit machine on wheels.

In what almost seemed like a concerted effort to drive that point home, Radiohead opened its first Atlanta show in two years on Oct. 6 with ''The Gloaming,'' a sinuous deep cut from the band's most recent album, ''Hail to the Thief,'' that never climaxes or even builds for that matter, but rather luxuriates in its glitch-rock groove, while Yorke unpacks one of his most paranoid post-millenial visions, this time of walls that bend and ''shadows blue and red.''

From the outset, the entire band seemed at ease and at home in the confines of the former Lakewood Amphitheater. If it seemed difficult before for Radiohead to gain admittance to either the indie-rock or Billboard-backed lunchroom cool tables, it's almost certain that neither clique would ever think of extending an invitation to the band after seeing Thom Yorke dance, which if high school taught us nothing else, is exactly what makes Radiohead so cool in the first place.

Unlike the studied poses and affected distance of self-conscious scensters, or the tried-and-true little red rooster moves of deathless arena-rockers, Yorke flailed about in a kind of spastic, arms-akimbo dance that proved just as infectious as it was unorthodox.

Radiohead might also have earned a reputation as self-insulated miserablists who follow their own tortured muse no matter how it sounds to fans, but the band disposed of those art-project rumors on this night with a two hour-plus performance that catered to all the demographics of its audience.

Even the most casual of rock-radio listeners was satiated with an ultra-rare run-through of the band's 1993 breakout hit (and subsequent albatross) ''Creep,'' given a respectful and reverent treatment far removed from the visible scorn Yorke reserved for it in the 1998 tour film, ''Meeting People is Easy.''

For second-tier fans who cherish the definitive alt-rock anthems of ''The Bends'' and the Digital Age dystopia of ''OK Computer'' but believe Radiohead lost the plot with ''Kid A'' and still hasn't recovered, the band was kind enough to permit a periodic suspension of belief with faithful, note-perfect performances of ''Fake Plastic Trees,'' ''No Surprises,'' ''Airbag,'' ''Exit Music (For a Film)'' and ''Paranoid Android'' (well, except for a couple of broken strings on that last one, but no matter).

For the unconditional syncophants in the audience, the show was absent much-loved rarities like ''Big Ideas,'' ''True Love Waits'' and ''Follow Me Around'' (not from a lack of requests), but Radiohead more than compensated with a sample platter of tracks from the still-fresh ''Hail to the Thief'' that proved both frolicsome (''Myxomatosis'') and ferocious (''2+2=5,'' ''Sit Down, Stand Up'' and ''A Wolf at the Door'').

On the eve of his 35th birthday, Yorke joked with the crowd about being able to get cheaper car insurance, and begged them not to remind him of tomorrow's festivities.

More importantly, he and his bandmates seemed more comfortable than ever in their rock star skins, and rewarded the thousands in attendance with a confident and cocksure performance that played to the cheap seats even as it retained every ounce of the band's eccentric genius and complex emotional resonance.